Recently Festool has started ramping up the pre-release marketing of their new Domino tool. They must have some smart cookies in their marketing department. They've done a couple innovative things to get the word our and build the hype.
First was inviting a bunch of woodworking magazine editors to their headquarters in Germany to demo the tool (and others). Festool paid for their trips (including "travel companions") and sent them all home with a free Domino system with all the trimmings. Not a bad gig, huh? And it should come as no surprise that we're seeing a barrage of magazine and blog articles raving about the merits of the tool.
Now we're starting to see evidence that Festool's marketing dept is leveraging new channels as well. There are some people on the internet who are trying to make a name for themselves by doing pod/videocasts and publishing tool reviews. Festool has given Domino "evaluation units" to these folks as well, and - surprise - these people are now extolling the virtues of the tool on various web sites.
This kind of thing has no doubt gone on for years by many of the tool mfgs - right or wrong. Even in other industries. It reinforces the fact that you should be critical and skeptical when you read (or watch) any tool review. Especially if it's done by someone who might have received free stuff from the manufacturer or who's magazine might benefit from advertising revenue. It's a tangled web being weaved, and we need to be careful when spending our hard earned dollar bills.
